Cast Photos by Joshua Scott: BETRAYAL by Harold Pinter, The Filigree Theatre, Austin, September 28 - October 8, 2017

Photos by Joshua Scott, via The Filigree Theatre. Cast members are Dave Moxham, Emily Rankin, and J. Kevin Smith.

 

From Wikipedia: 

Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, Harold Pinter's 1978 Betrayal features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship, face-saving, dishonesty, and (self-)deceptions.

Inspired by Pinter's clandestine extramarital affair with BBC Television presenter Joan Bakewell, which spanned seven years, from 1962 to 1969,] the plot of Betrayal integrates different permutations of betrayal relating to a seven-year affair involving a married couple, Emma and Robert, and Robert's "close friend" Jerry, who is also married, to a woman named Judith. [. . .]

Pinter's particular usage of reverse chronology in structuring the plot is innovative: the first scene takes place after the affair has ended, in 1977; the final scene ends when the affair begins, in 1968; and, in between 1977 and 1968, scenes in two pivotal years (1977 and 1973) move forward chronologically.[3] As Roger Ebert observes, in his review of the 1983 film, based on Pinter's own screenplay, "The 'Betrayal' structure strips away all artifice. In this view, the play shows, heartlessly, that the very capacity for love itself is sometimes based on betraying not only other loved ones, but even ourselves. Still, drawing on the frequently commented influence of Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' and Pinter's work on the 1977 'The Proust Screenplay' on the 1978 'Betrayal,' more emotionally complex interpretations are possible based on a stress on dual motions, one forward in calendar time toward disillusion and one backward toward the redemptive recovery of time, in each work.

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Betrayal
by Harold Pinter
Filigree Theatre

Sept 28 - Oct 8th 2017
Thurs - Sat 8 pm; Sundays 5 pm